New Feature: Biopharmaceutical Classification

DrugBank has historically had a well-annotated set of Biotech drugs (also known as biopharmaceuticals or biologics). Previously, we focused primarily on typical biopharmaceuticals such as recombinant enzymes and blood factors. Recently, we have been working on adding allergenics, vaccines, and other biopharmaceuticals to DrugBank. Although the curation efforts for these new drug pages is underway (but not complete), we have released the entries in order to ensure completeness of our product data.

In order to allow easy filtering of these new datasets, we have created a simple biopharmaceutical classification system. Although there have been attempts at classifying/grouping biopharmaceuticals before, a lot of these systems are informal or vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. We wanted something simple, and we don't currently include all possible types of biopharmaceuticals in DrugBank, as we exclude entries such as whole blood products and organs.

Here is a brief overview of the classification system available now in DrugBank:

Protein Based Therapies:

Blood factors

Fusion proteins

Haematopoietic growth factors

Hormones

Insulins

Interferons

Interleukin-based products

Monoclonal antibody (mAb)

Peptides

Polyclonal antibody (pAb)

Recombinant Enzymes

Thrombolytic agents

Other protein based therapies

Nucleic Acid Based Therapies:

Oligonucleotides

Other Nucleic Acid Based Therapies

Vaccines:

Attenuated

Conjugate

Heterotypic

Inactivated

Subunit

Toxoid

Valence

Other vaccines

Cell Transplant Therapies

Autologous cell transplant

Other cell transplant therapies

Gene Therapies

Antisense oligonucleotides

Other gene therapies

Allergenics

Allergen Extract

Allergen Patch Test

Antigen Skin Test

Other allergenics

This is the first version of the classification, and we would love your feedback and suggestions. You can filter by the top level classification on the biotech browse page:

You can also view the classification for each drug in the drug card:

The data will also be made available in DrugBank data exports soon. You can provide feedback/suggestions by contacting us at [email protected].